“Counter-top” or “Home” dispensing appliances, defined as appliances accommodating a beverage keg and designed to be placed on a counter top or kitchen counter, are typically home use dispensing devices accommodating rather small kegs (0.5-8 liters) in view of the kegs known for use in bars or restaurants. Unlike in bars, home beverage consumption is less planned and more impulsive and therefore requires fast availability of the beverage without upfront planning to cool the kegs.
Counter-top dispensing appliances accommodating small kegs (3.8-20 liters) also find use in bars or restaurants, in particular when the consumption of draught beverages is too low to justify the investment in a traditional draught installation. Establishments with low beverage consumption usually do not have the refrigerator space available to cool kegs in advance, and would like to rapidly cool kegs in the hours prior opening for business.
Counter-top beverage dispensing appliances also need to be rather compact with dimensions of between 400 cm2 counter area to 2500 cm2 counter area and a height of between 20 and 70 cm. Such dimensions leave very little to no possibility for effective cooling of the beverage dispensed from ambient temperature (room temperature) in the keg to a desired dispensing temperature of about 3° C.-5° C. in case of beer at the outlet of the tap. For cost reasons cooling of the keg in counter top dispensing appliances is effectuated by means of conventional and small cooling units comprising either a peltier element or a cooling circuit with a coolant and a heat exchanger for cooling air that is blown on the keg outer wall surface, through a fan.
For most counter-top beverage dispensing appliances, user manuals indicate that prior cooling (e.g. in a fridge or bucket with ice) of the kegs before loading in the appliance is necessary for dispensing a well cooled beverage within a time period of maximum 1-2 hours after loading the keg in the appliance. In case no prior cooling is available cooling of the beverage in the keg from ambient temperature to about 3-5° C. usually takes as long a 12 hours.
From the above it is clear that there remains a market counter-top dispensing appliances comprising a cheap cooling unit allowing fast and easy cooling of the beverage inside the keg accommodated in the appliance.